


Waiting

by rainbowgoddess



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowgoddess/pseuds/rainbowgoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve is injured in a surfing accident, hospital rules prevent Danny from seeing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

"To one who waits, a moment seems a year."

Danny was waiting. He was in a waiting room, so he supposed that was what he was supposed to do. It wasn't like there was anything else he could do except wait.

Not long ago, he'd been surfing. Surfing! When he'd moved to Honolulu surfing had never even crossed his mind. Then he'd met Steve, but he still hadn't been interested in surfing, at least not at first. When he'd had his knee injury, some people had assumed he'd hurt it surfing, and Steve had told them, “Danno don't surf."

Danno don't surf. But now Danno did surf, strange as it seemed. He actually liked it, to tell the truth. Well, what he liked was spending the time with Steve. How could he not? All Steve wore when he surfed was a pair of short swim trunks. Not much was left to the imagination. Steve got plenty of admiring looks from women (and a few men) on the beach, and Danny couldn't help but think, with pleasure, "He's mine. All mine."

Surfing was why they were here. Danny still didn't know how it had happened. One moment Steve was standing on his board, riding the wave, grinning like an idiot — a gorgeous idiot — with Danny on his own board nearby. The next moment Steve had gone into the water and been struck on the head by his board.

Danny had pulled him out of the surf. Someone on the beach had called for an ambulance. Now he was here, waiting, at the hospital.

After Danny had been waiting about 15 minutes, Kono arrived. "Any news?" she asked with concern.

He shook his head. "He's still unconscious. That's all they'll tell me."

Kono frowned. "But you're his...."

"Yeah, I'm his boyfriend. Big deal. That doesn't mean anything here. We don't have any, like, papers signed or anything like that. I'm not his family."

Before Kono could say anything, her cousin Chin arrived. Before Chin could ask anything, Kono stopped him. "No news. They won't tell us anything because we're not his family."

Chin pulled out his phone. "I'll call Doris. Maybe they'll talk to her."

Danny smacked himself. "His mother. Of course. I forgot about her."

Kono patted his shoulder. "It's understandable. You must be out of your mind with worry."

It wasn't long before Doris showed up. "What happened?" she demanded.

Danny explained about the surfing accident. Doris headed to Admitting. "Doris McGarrett," she announced herself. "My son Steve was brought in after a surfing accident, but no one will tell his partner here how he is. Will someone tell me — and him — what's going on?"

Danny got the impression that if she had to, Doris would use her CIA interrogation techniques on the hospital staff until someone told her what she wanted to know.

Eventually a doctor arrived and took Doris to one side. But she said, "His partner has been waiting here for news, and no one will talk to him. He's family just as much as I am," and she called Danny to her side. "Danno, the doctor here is going to tell us how Steve is — aren't you, Doctor?"

The doctor seemed like he was about to argue, but the look on Doris's face must have made him change his mind. "Commander McGarrett received a severe blow to the head. Fortunately, he did not sustain a skull fracture. He does have a concussion. We were concerned because he was unconscious for quite a while, but he woke up a few minutes ago and he's in good spirits. He should be all right, but we're going to keep him overnight for observation."

"Can I see him?" Danny asked.

The doctor looked at him. "Family only," he replied.

"I am his family," Danny replied. "He's my partner."

"Do you have a civil union?" the doctor asked. Same-sex marriage was not legal in Hawaii, but civil unions were.

"No."

"Then you're not family. It wouldn't make any difference if one of you was female. You're not related, and you're not married, so you're not family. Mrs. McGarrett, you can see him."

Danny stepped into the doctor's personal space and showed his badge. "I am a police officer. I am a member of Five-0, the governor's task force. I want to see my partner."

"Being a police officer makes no difference to you here, Mr. Williams. Security can throw you out just as easily as they can throw out anyone else." The doctor nodded toward a pair of security guards standing nearby.

Danny knew when he was defeated. "All right," he muttered and headed back to the waiting room, where he updated Kono and Chin on Steve's status.

Doris went into Steve's room. "Hi, honey, how are you feeling?" she asked.

"Mom? Where's Danny? Is he okay? Is he hurt?"

"Of course he's okay," Doris answered. "Why wouldn't he be?"

Steve gestured around him. "I'm in the hospital. I have a concussion. I don't remember what happened to me. The last thing I remember, I was surfing with Danny. If I got hurt, he could be hurt too. Why isn't he here if he's okay?"

"They won't let him see you," Doris replied. "Some stupid hospital rule about family."

"But Danny's my family," Steve protested. In truth, Danny was more his family than his mother was, since up until a few months ago, Steve had believed his mother to be dead.

Doris shrugged. "He put up a fuss, but they threatened to call security on him when he kept insisting on seeing you."

"Mom, you're not hiding anything from me, are you?" Steve asked. "I mean, if something happened to Danny, and you're trying to keep it from me because I'm hurt...."

"Steve, don't be ridiculous."

"You're sure Danny's okay?" Steve asked.

"Yes, I'm sure. They just won't let him see you until tomorrow, so you'll have to put up with me for now," Doris reassured him.

In response, Steve pushed the call button. When a nurse arrived, Steve said, "I want to see my partner. His name is Danny Williams, and he's probably in the waiting room. Will you fetch him for me, please?"

"Yes, Commander," the nurse said, and left.

Doris frowned. "I just told you that the doctor said you can't have any visitors other than family."

"If they won't let me see Danny, then I'll check myself out of the hospital," Steve said.

"What about me?" Doris asked.

Steve kissed her on the cheek. "Bye, Mom," he said.

When Danny was told that he could see Steve, he had to stop himself from running all the way to his partner's room and forced himself to walk — a fast walk, but a walk. When he arrived at Steve's room and saw that he was alive and well, though sporting a large bandage on his head, he breathed a sigh of relief. He saw that Steve also looked relieved.

"How are you feeling?" Danny asked as he leaned over to give his partner a kiss.

"Better now that you're here," Steve answered. "When I woke up and you weren't here, I was afraid that whatever hit me, hit you too."

"You don't remember your board hitting you?" Danny asked.

Steve started to shake his head, then thought better of it. "No, I don't remember what happened. They say that's normal when you have a head injury. You don't remember the last few moments before you got knocked out. Since I couldn't remember, I didn't know if you were hurt too, and since you weren't here when I woke up...."

Danny sat on the side of the bed and pulled Steve into his arms. "I'm here now, Babe," he said.

After enjoying the feeling of being held by Danny for a few minutes, Steve said, "I think we'd better do something to make sure this doesn't happen again."

"How do we do that?" Danny asked. "Not go surfing?"

"That's not quite what I meant," Steve laughed. "No, I'm talking about you not being able to see me because you're not family. We have to change that."

"You're not going to ask your mother to adopt me, I hope."

Steve laughed again. "What I'm proposing is that we get married — or a civil union, I guess. Civil union partners have hospital visitation rights."

Danny was stunned for a moment. Then he said, "That is the least romantic way of proposing I've ever heard, but I accept." He kissed Steve. "I love you."

"I love you too, partner."

END


End file.
